A Soft Place to Land
by ariel2me
Summary: Stannis Baratheon's last morning at the Wall, before marching south to the land of the mountain clans. Stannis/Melisandre relationship from Stannis' POV.


In the mornings of the nights they spent together, he loved this part the most. When she was still half-asleep, and he ran his fingers slowly down one side of her face. Brow, cheekbone, cheek, and finally her lips. She would let his fingers graze them for while, before those lips would part and one of the fingers end up in her mouth, her teeth biting down on it. He tried to anticipate when the lips would part, but she was always too quick. And after a while, he never really tried anymore, and only pretended to jerk his hand away.

The one time she had bitten too hard and drew blood, he had told her, "Maybe next time I should wear gloves."

She had tilted her head back and laughed. "What makes you think that would be any less enticing?"

That first time was a different animal. It felt dreamlike, as if he was looking at himself, and her, through a haze. Insubstantial, like lying on a feathery bed floating on the clouds. He had to remind himself constantly that it was a different act of consummation. Not a man and a woman, not two people, but a man and his god, as she had put it. "You have to give _all_ of yourself."

He had bristled at that. What was there left to give, to a god he didn't really believe in? He had burned the ancestral gods of his people, spoken the words, wielded the burning sword, written the letters announcing his claim to the throne in the name of that god. Because he knew that the power of a god lay in the fear and belief it inspired among people, not in the truth of its existence.

But the numbers were staring him in the face, shouting out the inevitable. The side with the bigger number wins, nine times out of ten. She had told him to believe, just this once. He had not quite managed the act of believing, but gave all of himself anyway. They had created something together, something terrifying, something life-destroying, something soul-crushing, and when the haze cleared and self-denial ended, he came to the only sane conclusion. _The blood is on my hands. Like Davos, she merely counseled, I was the one who decided._

He waited for her lips to part, but they stayed firmly closed. She was still sleeping. Her features looked different in repose, less ... beautiful, he would have said, if he was a man more familiar with the vocabulary of the aesthetic. As if beauty was a weapon she needed to wield to the world at large on behalf of her god. But not here, not in this room, not with him.

This was the source of her power over him, these acts of consummation, he knew people whispered behind his back. Even Davos. No, Davos would not whisper anything behind his back, but he knew Davos thought it too. It angered him at first, the whispers, but he considered it carefully afterwards. _No_, he finally concluded, _if anything, I have rejected her counsels more often since we started sharing a bed._

"You have a block of ice in place of a beating heart, brother." Robert had yelled at him once, during one of their arguments.

"Better a block of ice than a heart that cannot stop lusting for anything that moves," he had replied. To his surprise, instead of getting angrier, Robert had let out a loud guffaw.

"Yes, yes, I'm a sloppy drunk who beds half the woman in King's Landing and produces who knows how many bastards. But at least I _ha_ve known love, once upon a time. Have you, Stannis? Even if it's not with that discontented wife of yours?"

_Lyanna probably never loved you back_, he had thought, but did not say. "Living on the memory of past love is hardly any better than living without love."

Robert had looked at him with pity. "You're a lost cause."

He thought of his wife, as he was lying in bed next to another woman. _If she is discontented, it is because I have never given her a reason to be contented_. It was not Selyse, he could have been married to any woman and it would have been the same, he had long ago admitted to himself. _I am ice, cold and frozen and unyielding._

The one person who had ever come close to thawing his frozen center was his daughter, but even with her, he could not unfreeze enough to be the kind of affectionate father that Davos was. A sad little girl, brought up by a sad, unhappy mother and a cold, unfeeling father. _My sweet summer child, who has never lived through winter, but has known its terrible coldness since the day she was born._ _I have loved only her, and yet that love has done nothing for my daughter._

_This is not love_, he told himself as he took Melisandre's hand and kissed it, from the tip of her middle finger to her elbow. This is two people mutually in need of each other, two people mutually using each other. She stirred, opened her eyes and smiled at him. But only for a painfully brief moment. The light passing through the window distracted her, and she sat up hastily.

"You should be getting ready. It's almost dawn."

He let out a sigh. She laughed and said, "I know it will be very painful for you, all the dancing and singing and merriment. But remember, we must all do our duty."

"I would rather fight a thousand wildlings," he groaned.

"And I would rather go with you than stay here. But my duty is at the Wall, and yours is to charm the Northern lords."

"Charm!" he scoffed. "I am the rightful King."

"Duty before rights, my King, as Lord Davos so wisely said. The great battle is coming, and you need as many supporters as you can get."

By the time he finished dressing, she was up and dressed herself, standing at one corner of the room, gazing intently at the fire that burned brightly night and day. _Of course_, he thought. _She could not even wait for me_ to_ leave before getting back to her flame and her god._

"Don't sulk," she said, without turning away from the flame.

"Who's sulking? I'm not sulking. I don't sulk."

She finally turned to face him, her eyebrows raised to high heaven. For a moment, she seemed poised to deliver a biting comeback, but as she searched his face, something changed her mind. He wondered what it was. She finally said, softly, "I serve my god, and you serve yours. There is no point in resenting each other or the gods for that."

He laughed. It sounded bitter even to his own ears. "But I thought the Lord of Light is the one and only true god."

She gave him a shrewd, piercing glance. "We have gone too far together to start telling each other lies. Duty is your only god, as R'hllor is mine."

And that should have been the end of it. He should have turned around and walked out of the room, back to his own chamber, where his squire was probably already waiting. A recklessness seized him, born out of a sudden thought that materialized out of nowhere - _we might never see each other again._

"Will you think of me?" He regretted asking the question, almost as soon as it left his mouth. _What madness. Of course we will see each other again. Deepwood Motte should prove to be an easier battle than the one against the wildlings. And once I have crushed the Ironmen, the Northern lords will rally to my side._ _The Wall will be my home again soon, to prepare for the coming battle with the real enemy beyond the Wall. We will fight that enemy together, she and I. _

She turned away from him so quickly, he had no time to read her face. He started walking out, not eager to hear her reply. He was halfway through the door when he heard her melodious voice, as clear as the day, all the way from across the room.

"I will see you in my flame every day, my King. I will wait for your return."


End file.
